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Dada's Gang of Boys

The other day K was referring to a couple of friends of ours as 'Tendulkar Fanatics'.

I said that it is easy to be a Tendulkar fan. He scores oodles of runs. Acclaimed by all. Owns most personal cricket batting records.

In fact you actually have to be fanatical to be a Saurav Ganguly fan in my opinion. Consider the evidence. A man with patchy performances. Glorious at his best. Farcical at his worst. Often inconsistent. You always have your heart in your mouth when Dada bats. You have no idea what he will dish out. And over the last years its often not been much. While, as many point out, Tendulkar's still going on like a well oiled machine.

I had met a gaggle of fellow thirty plus Bengalis a few days back. The most consistent support group of Ganguly. In contrast to Ten whose supporters cut across clans and countries. We asked ourselves about why we Bengalis support Ganguly. Even when he is obviously a spent force. Why do we let the heart rule over the brain? And then, in a larger context, why do all our heroes belong to the past?

Well the fact is that most Bengali heroes belong to a time when we were in our diapers. Uttam Kumar? No more. Satyajit Ray? No more. Kishore Kumar? No More. Plus they all belong to the word of cinema. There has not been any national politician of note from Bengal post independence. Pranab Babu remains a Man Friday.

The sporting cupboards of Bengal are equally bare. Dalhousie Institute boy, Leander Paes, did well for himself. But tennis doesn't work in Calcutta. And despite much trying one couldn't discover any Bengali gene in Pele or Maradona. The fact is that Saurav Ganguly remains probably the only Bengali player of significance to have played for India.

And Ganguly is not any ordinary player. Yes, he had his cricketing moments. But more importantly he has spunk. An in your face attitude. He wears his heart on his sleeves. There is a sense of bravado in his demeanour. A willingness to take the fight to the opposition. A fighter.

There are many positive values associated with Bengalis. Love for art. Ability to think. Creativity. Culinary skills. Mishti. Ability to write. Rabindra Sangeet. But, a Bengali would probably not be your companion of choice if you got into scrap with someone.

We are the thinking race. We plan. We debate. We ponder.

We don't get into fist fights.

Ganguly changed it all. Here was a Bengali who walked with a swagger, his collars up, taking on the world, in a Quixotic manner at times. The last time a Bengali did that was Mithunda in B Subhash movies. And those acts were scripted.

So suddenly there was a whole lot of us who began to root for Ganguly. Like Danny De Vito in Twins, we puffed up our chests and said, 'you mess with me you mess with my family"

Add to this the fact that there was noone else to revere. Contrast this with say a Delhi who has Sehwag and Gambhir. Or a Bangalore which had Kumble, Srinath, Dravid, Prasad. We had one hero and we hung onto him with our dear life.

So Dravid loses the Bangalore captaincy to Pieterson. No problem. Laxman shown the bird by the Deccan Chargers. No problem. Yuvraj and Punjab. Ditto.

But drop Ganguly from the Indian team and the whole of Eden jeers Dravid and team India. Take away the KKR captaincy from Ganguly and SRK was left without a single Bengali supporting his team in IPL II.

"I was in school and hated chemistry and lost the tug of war game and took my bleeding hands home and you batted for me.

I felt the high and had my first crush and I was trying to make sense of what was happening to me and you batted for me.

I sprouted a moustache and spent vacations in Pune with my long departed grandpa and loved every match you played and you batted for me.

I went to art school and made new friends and learnt new tricks and mixed new colours and you batted for me.

I saw a big riot happen and cities burned and my city was bombed very badly and we were all scared and you batted for me.

I sat through two day exams and poster colours cost five bucks and Mafco lassi four and you batted for me.

I got cable TV and foreigners were on my screen and MTV happened and Baywatch happened and you batted for me.

I shaved off my moustache and saw Shahrukh Khan rise and Amitabh fall and Madhuri retire and Amitabh rise again and you batted for me.

I fell in love and out of love and graduated and looked ahead at my brand new dreams and held a bat for the last I remember and you batted for me.

I created my first ad and my chest swelled with pride and I felt grown up now as I earned my pay and you batted for me.

I voted for Vajpayee and he became prime minister and India went nuclear and Kargil blew up and you batted for me.

I sat along with the country and a storm hit a desert and then you hit the storm and you batted for me.

I did many ads and changed many jobs and won my awards and you lost your dad and yet you batted for me.

I saw heroes fall and your game was defamed and all else fell down and you batted for me.

I lost my dog and I cried and I cried and I gave up non veg and you batted for me.

I saw 9/11 happen as did the rest of the world and the world changed forever and you batted for me.

I went abroad for the first time to Sri Lanka and you were there and then to Australia and you were bigger there and you batted for me.

I was in office and we friends bonded over you and we screamed ourselves hoarse on the streets and fluttered the flag as you ripped through Shoaib and you batted for me.

I made newer friends and newer enemies and every now and then you walked out on the ground and then all of us together camped around the office TV and you batted for me.

I got better pay and I bought my first car and a new house and a new LCD to go and on it too you batted for me.

I saw my city and your city held under a siege and great heroes were born and you batted for me.

I saw people lose jobs and not lose their hopes and the world was now a far tougher place and you batted for me.

I came back home from some really tiring work and a child in my building called me uncle and I put on the TV and you were there and you batted like I was still in school and like the world had not moved and you batted for me."

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About Me

Kalyan Karmakar began
blogging in 2007 when his wife, who was tired of listening to him talk about
food all the time, opened a blog for him.

She named his blog www.finelychopped.net. The blog recently won the award for the best general food blog category in the FBAI 2017 Awards,

He has recently published his book, The Travelling Belly, which has been published by Hachette India. It is a food travelogue based on his travels across India :

Kalyan started his career as a market researcher and then moved into food writing. He is a cloumnist at the Indian Express, NDTV Foods and Femina. His writings can be found at the Mumbai Mirror, BBC Good Food India, The India Food Network and Scoopwhoop. He is a special guest on Mumbai on Demand on 94.3 Radio One FM and talks every Wednesday between 1 to 2 pm on Food trends.

His YouTube channel is called: Kalyan Karmakar and he is the co-wner of the channe: The Finely Chopped.
He conducts personalised food walks in Mumbai where he introduces the city to
participants through the dishes of his favourite food haunts.

To unwind he heads to the kitchen where he loves to play with ingredients and
his mantra is hassle-free, gut feel-based cooking.

Kalyan is a Bengali who now lives in Mumbai with his wife, who is a Parsi from
Mumbai. He moved in here close to two decades back from Kolkata after spending
his early years in Iran and the UK.

When asked what she feels about her introducing him to blogging, Kalyan’s wife
Kainaz says "I have forgotten the taste of hot food thanks to his
photographing everything on the table before we can eat it".